acid

Amino acids in nectar enhance butterfly fecundity: A long awaited link

The fascinating interactions between flowers and their pollinators have resulted in a spectacular diversity of plants. In order to entice pollinators such as bees, flies or butterflies to visit and successfully pollinate their flowers, plants have evolved intriguing mechanisms and attractants, of which nectar is best known. Thirty years ago, researchers discovered that nectars of flowers...

Conserved amino acids play both structural and mechanistic roles in sandwich-like protein

The question of whether amino acids in sandwich-like proteins are there to stabilize the structure or to speed up the protein-folding process is best answered by "all of the above," according to researchers at Rice University in Houston. This discovery, reported in today's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could benefit future research on treatments for disease...

Proteomics brings researchers closer to understanding microbes that produce acid mine drainage

A pink, bacterial scum on the floor of an abandoned mine seems an unlikely place to study community development, but a biological breakthrough is allowing University of California, Berkeley, researchers to probe the give and take in this microbial mat. Last year, the UC Berkeley team joined with the Department of Energy's Joint Genome Institute to pluck out the genomes of the five dominan...

Study shows how retinoic acid enters a cell's nucleus

Cornell University researchers have revealed a process that has stumped scientists for many years: exactly how an acid derived from vitamin A enters a cell's nucleus, where it has strong anti-carcinogenic effects. Discovery of this basic transport mechanism opens a new door for future research on related compounds. The finding has important implications for the fight against cancer and ot...

Oceans turning to acid from rise in CO2

A report issued by the Royal Society in the U.K. sounds the alarm about the world's oceans. "If CO...

Acid water in East Java threatens biodiversity and local welfare

She went to investigate the local ecology. Yet during her field work on East Java, Dutch biologist Ansje Lohr became increasingly involved with the local residents, whose harvests failed and whose health was deteriorating due to extremely acidified and polluted river water. Lohr has recently received a second grant to help the Javanese population. Lohr's Ph.D. study was part of a larger pr...

'Acid rain' and forest mass: Another perspective

A few years ago the study of the effects of atmospheric deposition on forest ecosystems reached beyond the scientific sphere and the term "acid rain" was coined. This problem, which ignores frontiers, happens because, due to the burning of fossil fuels, the amount of sulphur and nitrogen oxides in the atmosphere is greater than that derived from natural processes. These oxides, in the pre...

New technique helps researchers determine amino-acid charge

Measurements of the ion-current through the open state of a membrane-protein's ion channel have allowed scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to obtain a detailed picture of the effect of the protein microenvironment on the affinity of ionizable amino-acid residues for protons. The findings, reported in the Dec. 15 issue of Nature, are expected to be welcome news for...

Researchers create pigs that produce heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids

In diverse ecosystems, packed with wildly different species, evolution whizzes along. As different species accumulate mutations, some adapt particularly well to their environment and prosper. It happens in marine sediments, mountain forests ?and, as a new study illustrates, in precancerous tumors, too. In a study published online today in Nature Genetics, Carlo Maley, Ph.D., a researcher a...

Lactic acid not athlete's poison, but an energy source - if you know how to use it

In the lore of marathoners and extreme athletes, lactic acid is poison, a waste product that builds up in the muscles and leads to muscle fatigue, reduced performance and pain. Coaches and athletes don't realize it, says exercise physiologist George...

Use of amino acid supplement following a heart attack provides no benefit, may be harmful

Use of the amino acid supplement L-arginine following a heart attack does not improve certain cardiac functions and measurements and may be associated with an increased risk of death, according to a study in the January 4 issue of JAMA. L-arginine is a widely available dietary supplement and is publicized as having benefits for patients with hypertension, angina, heart failure and sexual d...

Fish on acid: Hagfish cope with high levels of CO2

The Pacific Hagfish is a strange animal: it feeds by gnawing its way into a carcass and staying inside to feed for up to 3 days. Scientists at the University of British Columbia (Canada) believe the Hagfish's gruesome method of feeding may cause the stagnant water inside the carcass to become acidic from the build up of CO2 produced by the fish, which could explain why the fish is able to cope wi...

Ocean acidification threatens cold-water coral ecosystems

Corals don't only occur in warm, sun-drenched, tropical seas; some species are found at depths of three miles or more in cold, dark waters throughout the world's oceans. Some cold-water coral reefs are home to more than 1,300 species of animals, a diversity rivaling some better known tropical coral reefs. Until now, scientists believed bottom trawling ?a commercial fishing method in which vessels...

Despite acidity, orange juice could still be a source of foodborne disease

Orange juice and other foods traditionally not associated with foodborne disease outbreaks can still be a source of disease, although rare. Public health officials should be aware of this possibility and on guard, say scientists presenting today at the 106th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) in Orlando, Florida. "The more we find out about the behavior of microorgani...

Acidity in the brain could hold the key to stroke treatment

Development of a new technique for detecting brain damage caused by stroke has been boosted up by a £1m grant to scientists at The University of Manchester. Professor Gareth Morris of the School of Chemistry and Professor Risto Kauppinen of the University of Birmingham are to lead the development of a new non-invasive technique which measures acidity (pH) in the brain. A stroke is caused w...

Acid rain causing decline in sugar maples, say researchers

Acid rain, the environmental consequence of burning fossil fuels, running factories and driving cars, has altered soils and reduced the number of sugar maple trees growing in the Northeast, according to a new study led by Cornell University researchers. The sugar maple is the most economically valuable tree species in the eastern United States because of its high-priced lumber, syrup and...

Genomic comparison of lactic acid bacteria published

With public concerns at a fevered pitch over the bacterial contamination of spinach, it is easy to lose track of how bland and deprived our world would be without the contribution to our food supply of such benign microbial players as lactic acid-producing bacteria. Researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI) and the University of California, Davis, and their...

Protein sensor for fatty acid buildup in mitochondria

Just as homes have smoke detectors, cells have an enzyme that responds to a buildup of fatty acids by triggering the production of a key molecule in the biochemical pathway that breaks down these fatty acids, according to investigators at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. This breakdown of fatty acids, in turn, provides the cell energy while reducing the chance that excess fatty acids will a...

Changes in amino acids in the 1918 influenza virus cut transmission

Modest changes in the 1918 flu virus's hemagglutinin receptor binding site—a molecular structure critical for the spread of infection—stopped viral transmission in ferrets, according to a new study conducted by researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine and at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The finding, published in the February 1 issue of Science, could have significant clini...